 Hello everyone, my name is Sheridan and I work at the Long Beach Public Library. I'm so excited that you joined us today for our LGBTQ plus Pride Family Storytime. Try saying that five times fast. I'm here today with my friend Mr. Carl and today we're going to read you a couple of books. We're going to sing you some songs, things to just, you know, get the rainbow juices flowing, to get the pride and the air, to get some love in the air, all that good stuff. Before we get to the books and the songs though, let's talk about why we're here in the first place. Why are we doing an LGBTQ plus Pride Family Storytime? And why are we doing one right now? Well, June is actually LGBTQ plus Pride Month. And why is June LGBTQ plus Pride Month? Because a little bit over 50 years ago, there was a really important protest at a place called Stonewall in New York City. It happened on the morning of June 28th, 1969. And leading up to this protest, people who identify as LGBTQ plus had been processing for their rights for a long time. You know, they were facing discrimination because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity or their gender expression. And discrimination is when the law or other people treat you differently because of who you are. Things that are so crucial to who you are that you can't change them. And it's unfair, right? People are oftentimes discriminated against because of their gender expression or their gender identity, their sexual orientation, the color of their skin. I mean, things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things, you know? They don't impact your ability to love somebody else or to be a good person. But, you know, people are discriminated against. And it happens. So anyway, on this morning of June 28th, 1969, some really important activists named Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, among others, decided that they had had enough, you know? And so they launched this protest. It lasts three days. It's in all the newspapers. People are talking about it. And it made a big difference in how people think about this. And it kind of launched a movement, you know, for LGBTQ plus liberation. And so that's why June is LGBTQ plus Pride Month. And we're doing this story time and the first place, okay? So let's get started with our first activity of the day. This one is called... Okay, I got it together and we're back. So we're going to make a rainbow. Have you ever made a rainbow? No? Okay, well, I've made a rainbow a couple of times. So by now I'm pretty good at it. Okay, so first what you're going to need is a bunch of ingredients. A bunch of ingredients that have the colors that you need to make a rainbow. First ingredient that we're going to need is boom. What's that? An apple. And an apple is the color. That's right. Red. So we have red and apple. We also have an orange and oranges are the color orange. We also have a banana. And bananas are the color yellow. And what else have we got? We've got a pear. A pear, not a bear. And pears are the color green, green, green. We also have some blueberries, which are the color. It's in the name, right? Blueberries. They're blue. And last but not least, we've got some grapes, which are the color. Uh huh. Purple. Okay, so we have all the colors that we need to make our rainbow. The second thing that we need is a magic pot, which we've got right here. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. It even has stars on it and everything. So you know it's magical. And the third thing we need is our song. This song is to the tune of skip to my loo. Skip, skip, skip to my loo. And we're going to sing it to make our rainbow. Okay. The first verse goes like this. Take an apple, put it in the pot. Here we go. We got to take our apple. We're going to put it in the pot. Boom, shaka. Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot. Are you helping me stir at home? You should be helping me stir at home. This is a big pot. So move your arms like this. Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot. Very nice. Take it out and what'll it be? Oh, the prettiest red that you ever did see. Okay. What's next? What color do we need next? Orange. Okay. So here we go. Take an orange, put it in the pot. There we go. Ready to stir? Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot. Take it out and what'll it be? The prettiest orange that you ever did see. All right. So we've got red. We've got orange. What's next? We've got red. We've got orange. What's next? That's right. Yellow. So which fruit do we need? Y'all are so smart. Of course we need the banana. Take a banana, put it in the pot. Here we go. Are you ready to stir? Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot. Take it out and what'll it be? The prettiest. Boom. Yellow that you ever did see. Okie dokie. Artichoke. What do we need next? Green. Take a pear and put it in the pot. There it goes. Ready to stir? Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot. Take it out and what'll it be? The prettiest green that you ever did see. We're doing pretty good. We're doing pretty good. We've got red. We've got orange. We've got yellow. We've got green. What other two colors do we need? That's right. What's next? Our blueberries. Take some blueberries, put them in the pot. Stir it, stir it and stir it a lot. Take them out and what'll they be? The prettiest blue that you ever did see. Great work. We've got to arrange it right. There we go. Last but not least, what color do we have left? We just need purple. We're going to use our grapes. That's right. Take some grapes and put them in the pot. There they go. Stir them, stir them, stir them a lot. Oh no, they didn't transform. Maybe we should do it one more time. Stir them, stir them, stir them a lot. Take them out and what'll they be? The prettiest purple that you ever did see. Great job, everybody. Good work. Give yourselves a round of applause for that one. That was very nice. We made a rainbow. We've got red. We've got orange. We've got yellow. We've got green. We've got blue. We've got purple. We've got a very colorful rainbow to represent some very colorful people. Not bad, huh? All right. Mr. Kall is going to read us a book. We're going to sing a song with him and then I'll be back to do a couple of other things and that'll be it. All right. See you then. Thank you, Mr. Sheridan. I am going to be reading Introducing Teddy, A Gentle Story About Gender and Friendship by Jessica Walton. Illustrated by Douglas MacPherson. Introducing Teddy. Introducing Teddy. Arrow and Thomas the Teddy play together every day. They ride their bike together in the backyard. They plant vegetables in the garden. They have sandwiches for lunch in the treehouse. And they have tea parties inside when it's raining. One day, Arrow woke to find the sun shining through its bedroom window. Hooray! He shouted. Come on, Thomas. Let's go to the park and play. Thomas the Teddy didn't feel like playing. Uh-oh. You seem sad today, Thomas said, Arrow. Don't worry. The park will cheer you up. Thomas the Teddy wasn't so sure. Oh no. Even the swing isn't working. What's wrong, Thomas? Talk to me. If I tell you, said Thomas, you might not be my friend anymore. I will always be your friend, Thomas. Thomas the Teddy took a deep breath. I need to be myself, Arrow. In my heart, I've always known that I'm a girl teddy, not a boy teddy. And I wish my name was Tilly and not Thomas. Is that why you've been so sad, Arrow axed? I don't care if you're a girl teddy or a boy teddy. What matters is that you are my friend. You're the best friend a bear could have, said Tilly. Now that you're feeling better, said Arrow, let's call our friend Ava. Hi, Ava. Teddy and I are at the park. Do you want to come play? Sure, Arrow. Let me just finish building my robot. There's her robot. Hi, Arrow. Hi, Thomas. Ava called out as she spat toward them. Hi, Ava, said Arrow. Teddy has a new name. Let me introduce you to Tilly. What a great name, said Ava. Let's go and play, Tilly. Wait. I'm just moving my bow tie, said Tilly, the teddy bear. I've always wanted a hair bow instead. Good for you, Tilly. Wear whatever makes you happy, said Ava. I think I'll get rid of my bow because I like my hair. Free. Arrow and Ava, until you played all morning until it was time to go home. See you at our next tea party, Arrow, said as Ava stepped onto her scooter. Yes, see you there. I'm bringing a friend, Ava yelled as she sped away. Arrow and Teddy, the teddy bear, play together every day. They ride their bike in the backyard. They plant vegetables in the garden. They have sandwiches for lunch in the tree house. And they have tea parties inside when it's raining. Introducing Tilly. Wow. That was a great story about how brave and important it is to be yourself and to love yourself. And loving yourself is so important and so brave. I even have a song about it. You guys want to learn? Okay. It's called Everybody Knows I Love My Toes. Okay. And it goes, everybody knows I love my toes. Everybody knows I love my toes. Love my fingers, my ears, my eyes and my nose. But everybody knows I love my toes. Good job. How about we do another one? Okay. Everybody knows I love my skin. Everybody knows I love my skin. I love my hair, my eyes, my nose and chin. But everybody knows I love my skin. Good job, guys. I hope you guys enjoyed that story and enjoyed that song. Next, we're going to have Mr. Sheridan come back, and he's going to share another story with you, Happy Pride. Wow. That was a really good book, right? And a really great song. I'm going to read a book, too. And this book is called It's Okay to Be Different. It's by Todd Parr. And the illustrations are by Todd Parr as well. So on the cover here, we see a couple of people, right? We see a few people, and they're all different. And that's okay. So let's see what's inside. It's Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr. It's okay to be missing a tooth or two or three. That's okay. It's okay to need some help. Oh, look. She has a seeing eye dog. That's okay. She needs a little help. That's fine. It's okay to have a different nose. Look at that super long nose. What animal is that? That's right. It's an elephant. Good work. They have super long noses, a different nose. It's okay to be a different color. Totally okay. Look, here we have a zebra and a rainbow zebra. And that's okay. It's okay to have no hair. Hi there. It's okay. It's okay to have big ears. It's okay to have wheels. Check out those wheels. They're going really fast, huh? It's okay to be small, medium, large, or even extra large. It's all okay. It's okay to wear glasses. It's okay to talk about your feelings. Check out this lion. He's going purr and roar and all kinds of feelings he's letting out right there. That's okay. It's okay to talk about your feelings. It's okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub. Totally okay. Have you ever eaten macaroni and cheese in the bathtub? I've done it once or twice. A couple of occasions. It's okay to say no to bad things. Check out these fish. There's a fish hook and there's two fish. What happens if they bite that fish hook? They're goners, right? So they're saying no. That's bad for me. I'm not going to do that. That's okay. It's okay to come from a different place. Check out that alien coming from a different planet. That's okay. It's okay to come from a different country or a different city or a different neighborhood or speak a different language. That's all okay. It's okay to be embarrassed. I was embarrassed earlier today. And that's okay. It's okay to come in last. It's okay to dance by yourself. I do that all the time. It's okay to have a pet worm. It's okay to be proud of yourself. If you do something good, if you do something nice for somebody else, if you do a really great piece of art or do really well in school and you're proud of yourself, that's okay. You should be proud of yourself. Or if you're LGBTQ+, it's okay to be proud of yourself. It's okay to have different moms. It's okay to have different dads. It's okay to be adopted. Maybe you have two moms. Maybe you have two dads. Maybe you have one mom. Maybe you have one dad. Maybe you have a grandma or an aunt. Whoever's taking care of you, that's okay. If you're adopted, that's okay. It's okay to have an invisible friend. It's okay to do something nice for someone. Check it out. What's that cat doing? It looks like that cat is giving this mouse some, let's write some cheese. It's okay to lose your mittens. That's okay. It's okay to get mad. Look at this skunk. He is steaming mad and that's okay. It's okay to do something nice for yourself. Huh? You do stuff, nice stuff for other people, right? Maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You do something nice for yourself on Friday. Not bad. It's okay to help a squirrel collect nuts. Check that out. It's okay to help a squirrel collect nuts. It's okay to have different kinds of friends. Not all your friends have to look the same or behave the same or have the same abilities. It's okay to have different kinds of friends. It's okay to make a wish. Check out. What's that dog wishing for? That's right. A bone. It's okay to be different. You are special and important and just because of being who you are. Let's read that one one more time just because I feel like this is a really good page, right? It's okay to be different. You are special and important just because of being who you are. Love. Todd. Oh, wow. The author is writing directly to us. It's okay to be special. It's okay to be different. You're special and you're important just because of being who you are. Love, Todd. That was it. That's the end of the book. It's okay to be different by Todd Parr. All right, folks. I guess that draws us now to the end of this story time. We've sung some songs about rainbows or we made a rainbow together. We've sung songs about loving your toes, loving your skin. We've read some books about it being okay that you're different or that somebody else is different. We've also read a book about Teddy who was really tilly the whole time and had to kind of come out and say that. Everybody accepted tilly for who she is and that's great. We'll say goodbye. Hopefully you enjoy the rest of LGBTQ plus Pride Month. Be kind. Take care of yourself. Don't stop reading and happy Pride. Bye, folks. Take care.